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Regret vs Woe - What's the difference?

regret | woe |

In obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between regret and woe

is that regret is (obsolete) dislike; aversion while woe is (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful.

As nouns the difference between regret and woe

is that regret is emotional pain on account of something done or experienced in the past, with a wish that it had been different; a looking back with dissatisfaction or with longing while woe is grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.

As a verb regret

is to feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.

As an adjective woe is

(obsolete) woeful; sorrowful.

regret

English

(wikipedia regret)

Verb

(regrett)
  • To feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.}}
  • (more generally) To feel sorry about (any thing).

    • Usage notes

    This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (the (-ing) form), except in set phrases with tell, say, and inform, where the to infinitive is used. See

    Derived terms

    * regretter

    Noun

  • Emotional pain on account of something done or experienced in the past, with a wish that it had been different; a looking back with dissatisfaction or with longing.
  • * Macaulay
    • What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe ?
  • * Clarendon
    • Never any prince expressed a more lively regret for the loss of a servant.
  • * Washington Irving
    • From its peaceful bosom [the grave] spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.
  • (obsolete) Dislike; aversion.

    • See also

    * remorse * repentance

    External links

    * * ----

    woe

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • grief; sorrow; misery; heavy calamity.
  • * Milton
    • Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, / Sad instrument of all our woe , she took.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • [They] weep each other's woe .
  • A curse; a malediction.
  • * South
    • Can there be a woe or curse in all the stores of vengeance equal to the malignity of such a practice?

    Derived terms

    * in weal or woe * woeful * woe is me

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) woeful; sorrowful
  • * Robert of Brunne
    • His clerk was woe to do that deed.
  • * Chaucer
    • Woe was this knight and sorrowfully he sighed.
  • * Spenser
    • And looking up he waxed wondrous woe .

    Anagrams

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